The Economics Conference promotes research into economic life from an associative point of view. The focus and topics of research are determined by members of the Economics Conference in accordance with their own sense of what is needed and what they can accomplish, along with certain agreed protocols.

Under the auspices of the Economics Conference, meetings and events of various kinds take place in different parts of the world. They include Annual and Regional Meetings, and workshops, seminars and other events that look at modern economic life from an associative point of view.

Publications are the main medium for sharing with the world the fact and the results of research. The publications of members of the Economics Conference are organised under several headings, reflecting a variety of media, different degrees of content intensity and levels of competence.

Under the auspices of the Economics Conference, meetings and events of various kinds take place in different parts of the world. They include Annual and Regional Meetings, and workshops, seminars and other events that look at modern economic life from an associative point of view.

Under the auspices of the Economics Conference, meetings and events of various kinds take place in different parts of the world. They include Annual and Regional Meetings, and workshops, seminars and other events that look at modern economic life from an associative point of view.

Literature

A considerable literature exists based mainly on the work of Rudolf Steiner. Steiner’s main text is a seminal course of lectures given in 1922 and published in English originally as World Economy, and then in revised editions (1993, 1996, 2014) as Economics – the World as One Economy’, reworked for a 'mainstream' readership and including an original synopsis by Christopher Houghton Budd. Importantly, given the predominance of today's Anglo-Saxon influence in economics, these lectures were given at the same time that the British economist, John Maynard Keynes, conceived his equally seminal work A Tract on Monetary Reform. Accordingly, an introductory essay entitled, Rudolf Steiner, Economist, by Christopher Houghton Budd outlines Steiner’s work in the broader sweep of economic history.

Apart from this main work, Rudolf Steiner also spoke and wrote about economics in many other contexts, often in texts that are chiefly only available in German. Others have also taken up this work, including Marc Desaules in Switzerland, Udo Herrmannstorfer mainly in Germany and Switzerland, Gary Lamb in the USA, Marco Bertalot in Brazil, and Christopher Houghton Budd and Arthur Edwards in the UK. (These are mentioned because of their treatment of associative economics in terms of economics as such, coupled with their mainly apolitical approach, and in some instances because of the link made to accounting, finance and a rethinking of corporations. The last three topics also feature prominently in associative economics in mainstream and academic contexts.) There is also a growing presence in Latin America.

The Economics Conference also provides the setting for various forms of publications, a chief characteristic of which is their collaborative basis. We are gradually creating an online archive of works related to associative economics. Various projects of this kind are already being developed in different parts of the world, but they are as yet uncoordinated.